Wouldnt be necessary if we could get an army of goblins.
Or kobolds. Or halflings. Or gnomes. Or smaller than normal dwarves. Or any other small creature.
In any case: Since we currently have 601000 gold drakes in the treasury, I think I should budget things.
100,000 goes into our castle. (I am working on this tonight)
An additional 100,000 goes into the creation of smaller holdings, forts, and keeps for the lower nobles.
We should probably spend 20,000 purchasing cheap, non-perishable, high-nutritional food from abroad. It's going to be necessary.
We'll spend another 10,000 - 15,000 on training troops.
15,000 shall go into building small schools and universities, which shall be especially useful for our academically inclined citizens, and possibly increase our population of wizards, all while increasing the appreciation the citizens have for us (They SHOULD thank us for helping in their education).
50,000 shall be used for gifts to those we think we can draw into our service.
250,000 will be held in reserve. At least 150,000 of this will not be touched unless we are in dire need.
10,000 will be used to hire and keep skilled craftsmen. We'll need them.
This leaves another 41,000 golden drakes. Any ideas for what to spend them on?
***
We should probably send ambassadors and recruiters out east into the unclaimed lands in order to draw mercenaries, adventurers, scholars and magic users into our service. They seemed to be booming at the time we left, so there should be plenty of talented people around. Same with the Aprilian Empire, since we sort of used to work for them, and could probably get some of their secret service members to help out in exchange for some favors and agreements. Don't know anything about the Northarian Empire or the Wild Lands, so it's probably not yet safe to ask them for assistance. I dunno.
There was that one crazy telf wizard guy. He might help us, since we kind of did clear out his tower for him after things went haywire. He might prove useful.
The merchant's guild owes us a bit, too, since we cleaned out that bandit lair. They might be willing to give us discounts and assistance with trade, particularly if we work out some more agreements.
Like I said, the iron mines need to be reopened. Will consider offering a minor lordship or greater rights (if mining guild helps) in an area with control of a mine to the most skilled loyal prospector willing to come forward and help us out.
Once again, those dragons really, really owe us. We should probably send someone to offer them land/gold in exchange for their assistance. A flight of dragons loyal to us would prove incredibly useful.
Anyone else who we should ask for help?
(Irrelevant, but now that I think of it, Naren is a Count. Count -> Viscount -> Baron -> Knight, as I recall. Technically, you people should all be viscounts if you're of rank immediately below Naren. So, I guess you're all Viscounts?)